I’m just wondering why in star trek (voyager, not sure about the others) they use the metric system. They always use metres, Km, degrees celsius, etc…
Not that I object, I prefer it… I am just surprised that an American produced show would use it.
I guess it was assumed that, in the future, everyone would be using the metric system. Also, even in the US, scientists and NASA use the metric system almost exclusively. In this way it gives the measurements in the show a scientifc/techno sound to them, at least to American ears.
Commander Adama! The Cylon fighters are just 3 microns away from reaching Battlestar Galactica!
In all of my exposure to things Trek, almost everything is based on the metric system, the only minor mutant of this is how computer memory is measured. Instead of using the standard of bytes, the arbitrary measure of the “quad” is inserted. As far as I know, the reasoning for this was to deal with the fact that the computers of reality might very well surpass what was thought by Star Trek writers to be a system so unimaginably fast that it would never be built.
The original Star Trek used English measurements for everything.
I guess that means I won’t live to see us 'mericans embrace the metric system any time soon. 
Modern day scientists (and some engineers) use the metric system. The Star Trek world is a highly scientific/technical society. It fits.
friedo -
Not so!
In ‘Assignment: Earth’, Scotty triangulated the position of the office for Kirk and Spock in metres.
So that gives you the time period for the change-over - between the 2nd and 3rd year of their mission.
And I am not going to go to any Star Trek site to convert that period into year 22XX-whatever. This exercise is left to the reader.
LOL. I had forgotten about that. If they were going to invent measurements, at least they could have used terms that don’t already exist. Three microns would be really, Really, REALLY close to the Glactica.
Overall it was a pretty stupid series, anyway.
You’ll notice that they do invent measures for alien races now - “General Martok, the Jem-Hadar ship is 3000 kellikams away!”
Makes sense, I think. I’d groan if the Klingons were using kilometers when there aren’t any Feds around.
I thought a KelliKam was like a JenniCam. 
So if the change occurred in the middle of TOS, does that mean “Enterprise” will be using English measurements? Thank god!
(A) [Spock]Fascinating… though I cannot determine what could possibly motivate that final expression of emotion, as it’s illogical to suppose that our audience may have formed an attachment to an obsolete measurement system.[/Spock]
(B) Actually, AFAICR, inter-ship distances were expressed in Kilometers during season 1, just not as consistently so as into Season 2 (“Enemy wessels at 100,000 kEElomEEterrs and klosink, Keptin.”) The “show bible” i.e. writer’s handbook stated that when dealing with something technical for which there were real-world terms, the current standard among scientists would be used in a technical context, but when characters were speaking colloquially, they could use “everyday” terms familiar to the audience.
(C) Mr2001, since when have ST scriptwriters ever felt compelled to maintain that sort of continuity ?
Anybody remember Elaan of Troyius, where Elaan uses “light years” as a unit of time?
Sheesh, I can’t believe I remembered that.
JRD is correct. In TOS, Sulu would say, “Captain, the Gorn vessel is 3.7 kilometers away”. But if some giant space parasite is attacking the ship, someone might shout, “My God, it’s over a mile long!”
They always used the metric system for scientific/official things, except when the screenwriters forgot. And if they can retcon the Klingons to always have had bumpy foreheads, they can retcon the metric system for “ST:Enterprise”.
(I tried to submit this once, but it didn’t go through. I made a sloppy error with it the first time around, anyway.)
Aw, that’s not WHOLLY inappropriate… after all, maybe by his vocabulary, a “light year” is the amount of time it takes a photon to travel (approximately) 5,965,696,000,000 miles. 
Well, I can imagine a system where distance is measure in time, so units of distance and units of time had the same name. Given c, an arbitrary time length equals a distance. Or you could do the opposite…define time by how long it takes light to travel a certain distance. “I’ll see you in 2 AU’s” could mean “I’ll see you in 16 minutes”.
In relativity, it’s perfectly valid to interchange units of distance and time, but you might as well use the appropriate name. In other words, just measure time in the time equivalent of lightyears… Namely, years.
Actually, they DID use made up terms. They never used microns, they said “centons” along with they’re silly made up swear words, “frak” and “feldercarb” (roughly equaling f*** or s*** and bulls***).
I’m woefully embarrassed that I know this…
And I believe that ‘yarns’ were years.
(Galactica)
Actually, years on Battlestar Galactica were “yahrens”. And FarScape has their own invented swear words, too - “What the FRELL was that?”